Coolie - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Historically, a coolie (variously spelled cooli, cooly, kuli, quli, koelie etc.) was a manual labourer or slave from Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, particularly China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and the Phillipines during the 19th century and early 20th century. It is also a contemporary racial slur or ethnic nickname for people of Asian descent

Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...

, including people from India, Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, etc, particularly in South Africa

Indian South Africans

Indian South Africans are people of Indian descent living in South Africa and mostly live in and around the city of Durban, making it 'the largest 'Indian' city outside India'. Most Indians in South Africa are descendents of migrants from colonial India during late 19th-century through early...

Etymology

In 1727 Dr. Engelbert Kämpfer

Engelbert Kaempfer

Engelbert Kaempfer , a German naturalist and physician is known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, South-East Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693. He wrote two books about his travels...

described "coolies" as dock laborers who would unload Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

merchant ships at Nagasaki in Japan. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

, the word dates to the mid-17th century. The word coolie can be traced to the Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

word qulī , which means "(day-)labourer". This Urdu

Urdu

form has an initial uvular velar (a sound alien to Indic languages like Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

), which indicates its foreign origin. It is probably a borrowing from a Turkic language (via Persian), possibly a shortening of Arabic ghulam

Ghilman

Ghilman Ghilman Ghilman (singular ghulam describes either young servants in paradise or slave-soldiers in the Ottoman, Mughal and Persian Empires.-Islamic Theology:...

"servant". Alternative suggestions, viz. from Kulī, an aboriginal tribe in Gujarat or to the Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

word kuli கூலி ("wages") (Encyclopædia Britannica) are therefore less likely. Another form closely related to the Hindi qūlī is the Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

kuli. It is also related closely to the Urdu

Urdu

term "qulī" or "kulī", meaning slave, which was possibly influenced by the unrelated Ottoman Turkish word "qul" or Turkish "köle", also meaning slave.

The Chinese word 苦力 (Pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: kǔlì) literally means "bitterly hard (use of) strength", the Mandarin pronunciation, in Cantonese, the term is 咕喱 (Jyutping: Gu lei). The word is referred as an Asian slave
The "coolie trade," as it became known, expanded during the 1840s and 1850s. Some laborers signed contacts based on misleading promises, some were kidnapped, some were victims of clan violence whose captors sold them to coolie brokers, while others sold themselves to pay off gambling debts. From 1847 to 1862, most Chinese contract laborers ("coolies") bound for Cuba were shipped on American vessels, and numbered about 600,000 per year. Conditions on board these and other ships were overcrowded, unsanitary, and brutal. The terms of the contract were often not honored, so many laborers ended up working on Cuban sugar plantations or in Peruvian guano

Guano

Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...

pits. Like slaves, some were sold at auction, and most worked in gangs under the command of a strict overseer.

Both contemporary observers and present researchers have frequently mentioned the similarities between the Chinese coolie trade and the African slave trade

African slave trade

Systems of servitude and slavery were common in many parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world. In some African societies, the enslaved people were also indentured servants and fully integrated; in others, they were treated much worse...

. Many coolies were first deceived or kidnapped and then kept in barracoons (detention centers) or loading vessels in the ports of departure, as were African slaves. Their voyages, which are sometimes called the Pacific passage, were as inhumane and dangerous as the notorious Middle Passage

Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were shipped to the New World, as part of the Atlantic slave trade...

. Mortality was very high. For example, it is estimated that from 1847 to 1859, the average mortality for coolies aboard ships to Cuba was 15.2 percent, and losses among those aboard ships to Peru were 40 percent in the 1850s and 30.44 percent from 1860 to 1863. At their destinations, they were sold like animals and were taken to work in plantations or mines under appalling living and working conditions. The duration of a contract was typically five to eight years, but many coolies did not live out their term of
service because of the hard labor and mistreatment. Those who did live were often forced to remain in servitude beyond the contracted period. The coolies who worked on the sugar plantations in Cuba and in the guano beds of the Chinchas (the islands of Hell) of Peru were treated brutally. Seventy-five percent of the Chinese coolies in Cuba died before fulfilling their contracts. More than two-thirds of the Chinese coolies who arrived in Peru between 1849 and 1874 died within the contract period. Among the four thousand coolies brought to the Chinchas in 1861, not a single one survived. Because of these unbearable conditions, Chinese coolies often revolted against their Chinese and foreign oppressors at ports of departure, on ships, and in foreign lands. The coolies were put in the same neighborhoods as African Americans, and since most were unable to return to their homeland or have their wives come to the New World, many married African American women, and formed some of the modern world's Afro-Asian population.

However, there are also significant differences between the Chinese coolie trade and the African slave trade. First, despite the many recorded cases of deceiving and kidnapping coolies, probably not all coolies were forced into bondage, though it is difficult to know what percentage of the total number was represented by voluntary coolies. Owing to famines, wars, and shortages of land, many southern Chinese chose to go overseas to seek a
better life. Second, not all coolies remained in bondage for life. Some of them became free after serving out their contracts; a few even managed to return to China. Third, coolies received wages, although usually they were paid much less than local workers. Fourth, although there are reports of ships carrying women and children, the great majority of the Chinese coolies were men. Finally, the Chinese government, although not able to give the coolies as much protection as they needed, showed concern for them. Both central and local
governments tried continuously to regulate and curb the coolie trade; at one point, the central government even sent inspectors to America to investigate conditions and intervene on the coolies' behalf. The Chinese government also took an active part in the final elimination of the coolie trade in 1874.

History

The term coolie was applied to workers from Asia, especially those who were sent abroad to most of the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, to Oceania

Oceania

Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

and the Pacific Islands

Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

, and to Africa (especially South Africa and islands like Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

and Réunion

Réunion

Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...

). It was also applied in Asian areas under European control such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

.

Slavery had been widespread in the British empire, but social and political factors resulted in its being outlawed in 1834; within a few decades other European nations had outlawed slavery. But the intensive colonial labour

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

on sugar cane or cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

plantations, in mines

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

or railways, required cheap manpower.

Experiments were performed with Malagasy

Malagasy people

The Malagasy ethnic group forms nearly the entire population of Madagascar. They are divided into two subgroups: the "Highlander" Merina, Sihanaka and Betsileo of the central plateau around Antananarivo, Alaotra and Fianarantsoa, and the côtiers elsewhere in the country. This division has its...

, Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

, Breton

Breton people

The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...

, Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

, Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

i and/or Congolese

Kongo people

The Bakongo or the Kongo people , also sometimes referred to as Kongolese or Congolese, is a Bantu ethnic group which lives along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire to Luanda, Angola...

laborers. Ultimately India

India

ns were mainly used, shipped to many Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

islands, East and South Africa, Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

, British Guiana

British Guiana

British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...

, Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

, Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

, Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

, Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, Grenada

Grenada

Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

, Suriname

Suriname

Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...

and Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

and other places.

Chinese coolies were also sent to the New World. They worked in guano

Guano

pits in Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, in sugar cane fields in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

and helped build railways in the United States and British Columbia (Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

In the Americas

Chinese immigration to the United States was almost entirely voluntary, but working and social conditions were still harsh:

In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty
Burlingame Treaty
The Burlingame Treaty, also known as the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, between the United States and China, amended the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858 and established formal friendly relations between the two countries, with the United States granting China most favored nation status...

repealed the century old prohibition law of the Chinese government and opened a floodgate of Chinese immigration. But a mere decade later, the American economy was in a slump and Chinese laborers were hired as scabs when white workers went on strike. During these years of unemployment and depression, anti-Chinese sentiment built around the country, fueled by demagogues such as Denis Kearney of San Francisco, who would rail in front of crowds that "To an American, death is preferable to life on a par with the Chinese."

Although Chinese labor contributed to the building of the first Transcontinental Railroad in the United States and of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

in western Canada, Chinese settlement was discouraged after completion of the construction. California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

's Anti-Coolie Act of 1862 and the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of...

contributed to the curtailment of Chinese immigration to the United States.

Notwithstanding such attempts to restrict the influx of cheap labor from China, beginning in the 1870s Chinese workers helped construct a vast network of levee

Levee

A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...

s in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. These levees made thousands of acres of fertile marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

lands available for agricultural production.

According to the Constitution of the State of California (1879):

The presence of foreigners ineligible to become citizens of the United States is declared to be dangerous to the well-being of the State, and the Legislature shall discourage their immigration by all the means within its power. Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labor shall be void. All companies or corporations, whether formed in this country or any foreign country, for the importation of such labor, shall be subject to such penalties as the Legislature may prescribe.

Colonos asiáticos is a Spanish term for coolies. The Spanish colony of Cuba feared slavery uprisings such as those that took place in Haiti and used coolies as a transition between slaves and free labor. They were neither free nor slaves. Indentured Chinese servants also labored in the sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

fields of Cuba well after the 1884 abolition of slavery in that country. Two scholars of Chinese labor in Cuba, Juan Pastrana and Juan Perez de la Riva, substantiated horrific conditions of Chinese coolies in Cuba and stated that coolies were slaves in all but name. Denise Helly is one researcher that believes despite their slave-like treatment, the free and legal status of the Asian laborers in Cuba separated them from slaves. The coolies could challenge their superiors, run away, petition government officials, and rebel according to Rodriguez Pastor and Trazegnies Granda. Once they had fulfilled their contracts the colonos asiáticos integrated into the countries of Peru and Cuba. They adopted cultural traditions from the natives and also welcomed in non-Chinese to experience and participate into their own traditions. Before the Cuban Revolution

Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...

in 1959, Havana had Latin America's

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

largest Chinatown

Chinatown

A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...

.

In South America, Chinese indentured laborers worked in Peru's silver mines and coastal industries (i.e., guano

Guano

, sugar, and cotton) from the early 1850s to the mid-1870s; about 100,000 people immigrated as indentured

Indentured servant

Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...

workers. They participated with the War of the Pacific

War of the Pacific

The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...

, looting and burning down the haciendas where they worked, subsequent to the capture of Lima

Lima

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

by the invading Chilean army in January 1880.

Between 1838 and 1917, at least "238,909 Indians were introduced into British Guiana

British Guiana

, 143,939 into Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

, 42,326 into Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

, 37,027 into Jamaica

Jamaica

, 34,304 into Suriname

Suriname

, 25,209 into Martinique

Martinique

, 8,472 into French Guiana

French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...

, 4,354 into Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...

, 3,206 into Grenada

Grenada

Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

, 2,472 into Saint Vincent

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island country in the Lesser Antilles chain, namely in the southern portion of the Windward Islands, which lie at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean....

, 337 into Saint Kitts

Saint Kitts

Saint Kitts Saint Kitts Saint Kitts (also known more formally as Saint Christopher Island (Saint-Christophe in French) is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean...

, 326 into Saint Croix, and 315 into Nevis

Nevis

Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies...

. British Honduras

British Honduras

British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...

also received Indians, but they did not come by the indentureship scheme; some were exiled Sepoy

Sepoy

A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...

soldiers and families. Although these were incomplete statistics, Eric Williams (see references) believed they were "sufficient to show a total introduction of nearly half a million Indians into the Caribbean" (Williams 100).

Modern use

In the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...

, when his men are ordered to participate with the construction of the bridge, British officer Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...

) declares that they will not be used as coolies by their captors.

In Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

, kuli is now a term to describe especially construction workers.

In Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

, "kuli" is a term for slave.

In Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

, kuli (กุลี) still retains its original meaning as manual labourers, but is considered to be offensive.

In September 2005 the Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, used this term when referring to the laborers who built the new international airport. He thanked them for their hard work. Reuters, a news source from Bangkok, reported of Thai labor groups angered by his use of the term.

The word qūlī is now commonly used in Hindi to refer to luggage porter
Porter (carrier)
A porter, also called a bearer, is a person who shifts objects for others.-Historical meaning:Human adaptability and flexibility early led to the use of humans for shifting gear...

s at hotel lobbies and railway and bus stations. Nevertheless, the use of such (especially by foreigners) may still be regarded as a slur by some.

In Ethiopia, Cooli is a term that refers to those who carry heavy loads for someone. The word is not used as a slur however. The term used to describe Arab day-laborers who migrated to Ethiopia for labor work.

The Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

word koelie, refers to a worker who performs very hard, exacting labour. The word generally has no particular ethnic connotations among the Dutch, but is used as a slur amongst Surinamese to designate Hindoestanen
Hindoestanen
The Hindoestanen are an ethnic group of South Asian origin in the Netherlands and Suriname. After the Dutch government signed a treaty with the United Kingdom on the recruitment of contract workers, the Hindoestanen began migrating to Suriname in 1873 from what was then British India as indentured...

.

In 2002, Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch is an American retailer that focuses on casual wear for consumers aged 18 to 22. It has over 300 locations in the United States, and is expanding internationally....

ended a line of tee shirts from stores across the United States after complaints that they depicted racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

caricatures of Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...

s. A typical criticism said "These are the kind of images we saw in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

newspapers a century ago" and "It smacks of Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1919. Loosely based on Honolulu detective Chang Apana, Biggers conceived of the benevolent and heroic Chan as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes, such as villains like Fu Manchu...

and the coolie stereotype".

Among oversea Vietnamese, coolie ("cu li" in Vietnamese) now means a person who works a part-time job. It's most used as a slang by oversea Vietnamese college students.

In Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, when freshmen of a technical university take care of student union club tasks (usually arranging a party or such activity), they are referred as "kuli" or performing a "kuli duty".

In the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

, a Lance Corporal
Lance Corporal
Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organizations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer, usually equivalent to the NATO Rank Grade OR-3.- Etymology :The presumed...

is sometimes referred to jokingly as a "Lance Coolie", due to their often being picked for work details or chosen to perform menial tasks not related to their actual Military Occupational Specialty
Military Occupational Specialty
A United States military occupation code, or a Military Occupational Specialty code , is a nine character code used in the United States Army and United States Marines to identify a specific job. In the U.S. Air Force, a system of Air Force Specialty Codes is used...

, especially in units that do not have many Privates or PFCs.

In Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

, Trinidad & Tobago & Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, it is used loosely to refer to anyone of East Indian descent. It is sometimes used in a racial context and sometimes used in friendly banter.

In many English-speaking countries, the conical Asian hat worn by many Asians to protect themselves from the sun is called a "coolie hat".

In the I.T. industry, offshore workers are sometimes referred to as 'coolies' because of their lower cost.

The term "coolie" appears in the Eddy Howard
Eddy Howard
Eddy Howard was an American vocalist and bandleader who was popular during the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...

song, "The Rickety Rickshaw Man". (It was the rickshaw that was rickety.)

Poet and semiologist Khal Torabully
Khal Torabully
Khal Torabully is a Mauritian and French poet, who has coined the concept of "coolitude." Born in Mauritius in 1956, in the capital city Port Louis, his father was a Trinidadian sailor and his mother was a descendant of migrants from India and Malaysia....

coined the word coolitude to refer to a vision of humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

and diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

born from the indenture
Indenture
An indenture is a legal contract reflecting a debt or purchase obligation, specifically referring to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and in modern usage, an instrument used for commercial debt or real estate transaction.-Historical usage:An indenture is a...

or coolie experience. This poetics is studied at University level so as to encompass a new dynamics of migration originating from the encounter of indentured persons and other cultural spheres, namely from postcolonial and postmodern perspectives.

Film

In Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow Sing-Chi is a Hong Kong actor, comedian, screenwriter, film director and producer.- Professional career :Stephen Chow began as a temporary actor for TVB. He entered TVB in early 1980s, and was trained there, although he had few opportunities to appear in films. Chow graduated from...

's 2004 action-comedy film Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Hustle is a 2004 action comedy film directed and produced by, and starring Stephen Chow. The other film producers were Chui Po-chu and Jeffrey Lau, while the screenplay was written by Huo Xin, Chan Man-keung, and Tsang Kan-cheung...

, former Shaolin monk Xing Yu

Xing Yu

Xing Yu a.k.a. Shi Xing Yu gained his fame after playing the role of Coolie in the movie Kung Fu Hustle.He was a 32nd generation martial monk at the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song ....

plays a character who works as a Coolie, doing hard labor in a multi-floored apartment-block village called "Pig Sty Alley". However, when a petty thief (Stephen Chow) and his sidekick pose as members of the infamous "Axe Gang" and accidentally bring upon the wrath of actual members, Coolie is the first of three retired martial artists who come to the village's aid. He is a master of the 12 Kicks of the Tam School (十二路潭腿), a leg-oriented boxing style. He is later beheaded by assassins hired by the Axe Gang to kill the village's landlords.

Coolie

Coolie (1983 film)

Coolie is a 1983 Indian Bollywood film directed by Manmohan Desai. The film starsAmitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Kader Khan, Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar...

is an 1983 Indian film about a coolie, Amitabh Bachchan, who works at a railway station and has a lover. His lover's father once murdered a girl's father in an attempt to force her to marry him, but she did not give in. After 10 years of imprisonment, he flooded her village (injuring her new husband) and causing her to awaken with amnesia. It starred Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...

and Waheeda Rehman

Waheeda Rehman

Waheeda Rehman , is an Indian film actress who appears in Bollywood movies and is known for many successful and critically acclaimed movies from 1950's, 60's and early 70's most notably C.I.D. and Guru Dutt classics such as Pyaasa , 12 O'Clock , Kaagaz Ke Phool , Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam...

.

Guiana 1838 is a 2004 docu-drama that explores the unknown world of indentureship and slavery in the British Colonies of the West Indies. It reveals the trials and tribulation of both the African slaves and the unsuspecting Indians from Calcutta who expected "El Dorado" only to find themselves on a ship to hard labor. http://www.guiana1838.com

The film Romper Stomper

Romper Stomper

-Awards:The film was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards. It won Best Achievement in Sound, Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Original Music Score.-Box office and Reception:Romper Stomper grossed $3,165,034 at the box office in Australia,...

shows a white power skinhead named Hando (played by Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe

Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...

) expressing distress about the idea of being a coolie in his own country. Also, the gang he directs makes frequent attacks at gangs of working class Vietnamese Australians.

2010's Merry-Go-Round (HK)Dong fung po (original title) the backdrop of this drama is based on the events of the "coolie trade" to the U.S., where Chinese who died abroad had their bodies shipped back to China via Hong Kong. Those whose bodies were not found or unrecoverable, ie. mining accidents, lost at sea, etc., had empty coffins sent back. The empty coffins symbolized the return of the "souls" back to their homelands.

The documentary film directed by Yung Chang

Yung Chang

-Biography:Yung Chang is the director of Up the Yangtze. He is a Canadian filmmaker currently based in Montreal, where he earned a degree in film production in 1999 from Concordia University...

called Up the Yangtze

Up the Yangtze

Up the Yangtze is a 2007 documentary film directed by Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang. The film focuses on people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. The theme of the film is the transition towards consumer capitalism from a farming,...

, follows the life of a family in China that are relocated due to the flooding of the Yangtze. The daughter is sent directly from finishing middle school to work on a cruise ship for western tourists, to earn money for her family. Her father referred to himself as a 'coolie' who used to carry bags on and off of boats.

Television

The phrase was used repeatedly in the 1993-1994 Fox weird west

Weird West

Weird West is used to describe a combination of the Western with another literary genre, usually horror, occult, or fantasy.DC's Weird Western Tales appeared in the early 1970s and the weird Western was further popularized by Joe R...

series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., often referred to as just Brisco or Brisco County,The series is referred to as just Brisco or by Brisco County by the creator and executive producer Carlton Cuse, actors involved with the show, and by many critics. Some examples include:* Cuse, Carlton, DVD extra...

–set in the 1890s–in reference to Chinese workers.

External links

Hill Coolies
BBC documentary: Coolies: The Story of Indian Slavery
"Labour and longing" by Vinay Lal
Personal Life of a Chinese Coolie 1868-1899
Chinese Coolie treated worse than slaves
Site dedicated to modern Indian coolies
India Together article on modern Indian coolies
Article on Chinese immigration to the USA
Review of Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labor Diaspora
Ramya Sivaraj, "A necessary exile", The Hindu (April 29, 2007)
Commemoration of indentured, Aapravasi ghat 2 November 2007.
In French, starts to dialogue with its History, Khal Torabully
Description of conditions aboard clipper ships transporting coolies from Swatow, China to Peru, by George Francis Train
George Francis Train
George Francis Train was an entrepreneurial businessman who organized the clipper ship line that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco; he organized the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier in the United States, and a horse tramway company in England while there during the American...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Etymology

History

In the Americas

Modern use

Film

Television

See also

Further reading

External links